'Hacking scandal's all my fault': The man who 'told Sun and Mirror how to access voicemails 12 years ago'

Hacking research: Steve Nott says he discovered how to hack into voicemails in 1999

A man has claimed he warned two tabloid newspapers how easy it was to hack phones 12 years ago so that they could warn the public of the danger, it emerged today.

But neither The Sun nor the Daily Mirror reported Steve Nott’s warnings, despite journalists showing apparent interest in what the salesman had learned from a Vodafone technician.

The first title – the sister paper of the now axed News of the World – allegedly even invited him into News International's offices to learn how to access other people’s voicemail messages, according to Mr Nott.

And the Mirror, which has been accused of hacking the phone of Heather Mills after a row with her ex-husband Sir Paul McCartney, is said to have told Mr Nott that it was a ‘great story’.

Mr Nott, from Cwmbran, South Wales, who claims he revealed the techniques to the papers in 1999 – three years before the News of the World hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler – now believes he may have been responsible for the subsequent scandal.

The salesman, who was working for a food manufacturer at the time, first called the Daily Mirror about his revelation and said: ‘They told me it was a great story.’

But when two weeks went by without anything being published, Mr Nott then called The Sun.

‘I showed the reporter everything – he was really excited’, he said – but he never heard back from them either.

Finally he managed to get an interview with BBC Radio 5Live to discuss how he discovered phone hacking and the South Wales Argus newspaper decided to run a story on it.

Mr Nott also claims he wrote to MI5 and the Department of Trade and Industry with his revelation.

Newspaper clipping: The South Wales Argus published Mr Nott's article about voicemail hacking on October 13, 199

The father-of-two stumbled across how to hack into mobiles while driving through the Welsh countryside in June 1999.

After losing his signal and being desperate to check his phone messages, he pulled in at a service station to call his network operator Vodafone.

He was told by the operator that if he knew the access PIN, he could hack into his messages from any other phone.

Mr Nott had never changed his access PIN from its default setting 3333 – like the majority of people – and managed to hack into his messages straight away.

He said: ‘I was gobsmacked by how easy it was. I spent the next couple of months playing games with my mates and work colleagues.

In charge: Piers Morgan was the editor of the Daily Mirror in 1999

‘But I soon realised that this issue
of easily being able to intercept voicemail, delete messages, change
welcome greetings and change the PIN was too serious and decided it had
to be exposed.

‘I
made a list of how it could affect the public and also the security
implications on important people like the Royals, politicians etc.’

Mr
Nott says the Daily Mirror said it was going to possibly be one of the
biggest stories of that decade and would make a front page.

‘They said they were going to try it out for themselves and see how it all works’, he added.

But after twelve days of waiting for the story to emerge, Mr Nott says the newspaper suddenly changed their mind and said they weren’t interested in it anymore.

‘I was amazed, one minute, massive news story promises and excitement, then nothing’, he said.

Mr Nott claims the same thing happened with The Sun, after personally being invited into News International’s Wapping offices to explain the whole story.

He then contacted the police and said: ‘I spoke to New Scotland Yard and also wrote them a detailed letter explaining my issues, my findings and the problem that was a national security risk. I never had a reply from them.’

After being dismissed, he started contacting as many newspapers as possible to inform them, hoping that one of them would run the story.

‘The Daily Mail did run an article about listening to voicemail in late 2000 or early 2001 – it was centre spread and was covered well’, he said.

His story was also published in his local newspaper The South Wales Agus on October 13, 1999.

Response: Mr Nott received this letter from Lord Prescott on March 30 this year

On March 30 of this year, Mr Notts received a letter from Lord Prescott saying that his information had been passed on to The Metropolitan Police.

He says he was also called in as a witness to one of the civil cases suing Newsgroup newspapers and Glen Mulclaire.

On 18 July this year, Mr Nott was then visited by detectives from Operation Weeting – the criminal investigation into phone hacking by journalists.

Mr Nott wrote on his blog, named Hackergate: ‘I always wanted the public to know from the very outset.

‘I tried my hardest to get the press to take the story and failed. I’m now making it my mission to make sure everyone knows that I tried and nobody helped apart from the BBC.

‘What others did with the information beggars belief or what they were doing with it before I turned up, more to the point.’

News International and Trinity Mirror have both declined to comment on the claims.